Hibs Head Coach David Gray admitted that Rangers deserved to progress to the semi-finals of the Premier Sports Cup.
Hibs were beaten 2-0 on the day in Glasgow, with two goals in the space of five minutes from Nico Raskin and Bojan Miovski at the end of the first half proving crucial.
Gray’s men created several good chances, particularly in the first half, but couldn’t find the back of the net.
Speaking to Hibs TV after the final whistle Gray said: “It’s hugely frustrating because we are out of the cup. I said at the beginning that we needed to be at our best today to make sure we gave ourselves the best chance of progressing and unfortunately, we weren’t today. There were too many of us who weren’t at it and not quite at the levels that we set ourselves.
“With that said, it all came down to big moments in the game and the goals changed the game. We started the game quite well and restricted Rangers to very little in the first period, I thought we carried the biggest threat in the first half and we had a good shape.
“But we lost a really poor goal from a set-piece – we conceded the exact same goal from the same situation last season, so that is not good enough.
“We had a huge chance to go in at 1-1 but we don’t take it and then we concede one at the other end from real slack defending. So we found ourselves 2-0 down at half-time, despite carrying the biggest threat – so that was tough to take.
“In the second half, we didn’t do enough. We changed a few things to try and get back into the game. It wasn’t through a lack of effort or anything like that, but we didn’t work the goalkeeper enough and overall I think Rangers probably deserved to go through.”
Martin Boyle thought he had given Hibs the lead in the first half, but his goal was ruled out after VAR spotted a handball in the build-up.
“It was frustrating, because it is completely accidental; it catches him in his natural running stride. What I can’t say is ‘it is the wrong decision’ – because that is the letter of the law, if it hits your hand and you go through and score, it will be chalked off. The letter of the law went against us today, but my biggest frustration is the lack of consistency with these kind of decisions across the board.
“It was always going to be a huge week with a lot of difficult fixtures coming up, the good thing is the next game comes quickly. The players can get straight back into and we don’t have time to feel sorry for ourselves. Domestically, we’ve started well in the sense that we are unbeaten – but we need to start turning results into three points.”
